The highs and lows
Wow, where do we start
High – Mafi, Koribete and Hodge
In his first Super Rugby season, the Japanese test number 8 was dynamic and a shining light for the Rebels. Mafi led the league for runs and ranked first for forwards in the competition for run metres and offloads. He also led the Rebels for tackle busts, line breaks and pilfers. We look forward to running around for the Rebels in 2018, and he thoroughly deserved the honour of winning the Rebels Players’ Player of the Year.
Mafi – what a machine
Koroibete, a former Melbourne Storm star, had a scratchy start to his Super Rugby career. He improved dramatically and in the rare occasions, he was given some space showed how damaging he could be. Koroibete scored six tries, including two doubles to be the Rebels’ leading try scorer during the year. He also had 14 line breaks and 35 tackle busts.
After a breakout 2016 season, Reece Hodge was again one of the Rebels’ better players. Hodge was the Rebels’ second leading try scorer in 2017 with four tries. He now is equal second leading try scorer in Rebels history on 13 tries with Tom English and Cooper Vuna. Hodge scored 118 points in 2017 which is exactly 50% of the Rebels total points during the season.
High – Only win of the season
In a round 8 match at AAMI Park, the Rebels pinched their first and what was to be their only win of the season with a late penalty goal from Reece Hodge. The Rebels started well skipping out to an early 10 nil lead following a try from Sefanaia Naivalu and a penalty and conversion from Hodge. The Rebels tried to impersonate a rugby league team midway through the first half with both Colby Fainga’a and Lopeti Timani sin binned at the same time.
The Rebels some resilience to not only overcome these sin bins but also the sin binning of Victorian prop Fereti Sa’aga early in the second half and the Brumbies scoring three tries to one to get over the line. Hodge kicked 4 penalty goals and a conversion to give the Rebels faithful something to cheer about.
High and low – Waratahs in Melbourne
After a scintillating first half the Rebels fans were on their feet and joyous with the Rebels leading 25 to 6. The Rebels scored three tries before half time, with two of those tries coming in a five minute period just before the break. Reece Hodge had scored 20 points, including a double, and Tom English had a scored a try. In particular, Reece’s second try followed some good work by the forwards close to the line before Hodge ran a beautiful angle onto a Nic Stirzaker pass to evade a desperate effort to tackle him by Michael Hooper. This could arguably have been the best half in Rebels’ history.
Reece scoring one of his two tries against the ‘Tahs
After returning from the sheds with a 25 to 6 lead, Rebels fans were hopeful of more of the same in the second half. Sadly, things went downhill fast.
Ned Hanigan and Reece Robinson both scored tries for the Waratahs in the first twenty minutes of the second half. The Rebels were hanging on grimly and were still leading 25 to 18 inside the last five minutes. A card to Colby Faainga’a, and a subsequent try to Michael Wells, levelled the scores. With just minutes to play, (the now Rebels bound) David Horwitz scored as the siren sounded to pinch victory for the Waratahs.
A dagger through the hearts of all Rebels fans.
High and low – Draw v Sharks
This was the first time the Rebels had played a match in South Africa in the seven year history and not lost the game. That was the high along with the Super Rugby debut of Shute Shield product Will Miller, who had a cracking game winning 4 turnovers.
The low was it was a dour, ugly 9-all draw with 3 penalty goals each for Curwin Bosch and Reece Hodge. The draw was made even uglier by the fact that the Rebels had an extra man advantage after Andre Esterhuizen was sent off in the 17th minute for a dangerous tackle. Not to be outdone Nic Stirzaker was sin binned in the 3rd minute and then sent off in the 68th minute for a second yellow card, whilst James Hanson also received a yellow card in the 52nd minute.
Low – Performances
2017 was clearly the worst year in terms of performances for the Rebels with one win, one draw and 13 losses. Even in the Rebels’ first year in 2011, they managed 3 wins.
The Rebels were able to remain competitive for patches, in some matches, they remained competitive for 30, 40 and sometimes as long as 60 minutes. Unfortunately, the periods when the Rebels were uncompetitive were extremely ugly.
The Rebels’ performance was impacted by poor game plans, basic skill errors and at times what appeared to be a lack of desire. The Rebels were only able to achieve 3 bonus points from their 13 losses and had a points differential of -333.
Performance – needs to improve in 2018
With the Sunwolves upset win over the Blues in the final round, the Rebels finished last overall. Given the off field dramas with the culling, the timing could not have been any worse. Clearly, talk of culling impacted the Rebels, however, the Western Force seemed to galvanise and have a reasonable season.
Low – two scrum halves on the SA tour
Tony McGahan in his wisdom decided to take only two scrum halves for the two matches in South Africa. From the outside looking in this seemed to be a case of McGahan putting a line through Ben Meehan’s name because he had agreed to join London Irish in 2018.
On paper, the Rebels looked to be a chance in this match. Leading up to the match skipper Nic Stirzaker was ruled out leaving Mick Snowden as the only scrum half in the match day 23.
Snowden, unfortunately, went down with a season ending foot injury and was replaced after 25 minutes with the Kings leading 8-0. Following the substitution three different players filled in at scrum half.
Snowden – man down against the Kings
Whilst they tried their best, the absence of a scrumhalf seriously impacted the Rebels, who ended up being thrashed 44 to 3. We will never know if a second scrum half would have helped, but it would have made the Rebels much more competitive.
